Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Book Review: Lost Daughters - Writing Adoption from a Place of Empowerment and Peace

 Adoption at the Movies takes a break from the cinema this week to visit the bookstore. Amanda H.L. Transue-Woolston (founder of The Lost Daughters and The Declassified Adoptee websites) has just published a meaningful book; I want to share it with you.

Conversation creates understanding. Understanding creates interpersonal health.

Lost Daughters: Writing Adoption from a Place of Empowerment and Peace gathers the well-articulated stories of around two dozen adult women who have been adopted. The stories shared are powerful and painful, open and honest, and realistically complex. No one is standing on a soapbox; these are real, lived experiences that the Lost Daughters continue to process, understand, and share. The book does not tell adoptees or adoptive parents how to feel, it simply believes that “the voices of adult adoptees make adoption better.”

Again… Conversation can bring about understanding. Understanding creates interpersonal health.
That’s why I write Adoption at the Movies. That’s why the Lost Daughters write. That’s why people read stuff like this. We are all taking steps in the right direction in an emotionally loaded situation, forgoing polarizing polemics in favor of insightful, honest, and considered dialogue. And I think this is the road that will lead to healing for those who have been hurt through adoption, and to better experiences for the people yet to be adopted. Adoptees can find healing and community; adoptive parents can make better choices, social workers like me can learn to be more sensitive. This is a good book, and I hope it's joined by many others like it.

As one of the authors writes, “The more we can question, explore and understand the experience, the more opportunity we will have to shape the future of adoption.” Lost Daughters: Writing Adoption from a Place of Empowerment and Peace is an invitation to join in the shaping. 

Lost Daughters can be purchased from Amazon through this link.

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